Retailer pulls Anne Frank Halloween costume amid complaints

Anne Frank (Wikicommons)

Really bad taste? A retailer has stopped marketing an Anne Frank Halloween costume amid public outcry.

An online retailer has pulled a costume from its website that enabled revelers to dress up as fame Holocaust victim Anne Frank.

Screenshots of the costume for sale at HalloweenCostumes.com posted to social media show a smiling girl wearing World War II-era clothing and a beret. The costume was quickly criticized on Twitter.

The Anti-Defense League (ADL) tweeted that it was “hard to see how this offensive idea made it this far, but thankfully this costume has been removed from the market.”

Carlos Galindo-Elvira, who leads the ADL Arizona office, said on Twitter that the costume trivializes Frank’s memory.

North Mankato, Minnesota-based Fun.com runs the website. Spokesman Ross Walker Smith tweeted Sunday that the costume was pulled from the website. He explained that the company sells costumes for activities other than Halloween, such as “school projects and plays.”

He apologized for any offense caused by the costume.

The product is still being sold by other outlets, marketed as a “child World War Two evacuee costume.”

Frank kept a diary during her time in hiding that was published after the war and made her into a globally recognized symbol of Holocaust victims. She died in the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp at age 15, shortly before it was liberated by Allied forces.

By: AP and World Israel News Staff

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